"I remember the first time I saw Stevie. I was looking for somebody to play on the right wing and Steve Heighway said he thought he had an answer in the Under-19s. There was a game organised between them and Blackburn’s Under-19s so I went.

"After five minutes I realised the guy he was talking about would not fit into the wide position that I wanted, but in the middle of the park there was a player running from box to box, shouting at his team-mates and tackling, controlling the tempo.

"At half-time I asked who he was and they told me it was a boy from the academy, that he was only 17 and played with the Under-19s to help them out, that he did not train a lot because he was often injured. In the second half he was as good as in the first, so I remember at the end of the match I told him that tomorrow he would be training with the pros. That’s how he came to Melwood for the first time."

And Liverpool fans have been thankful ever since.

Mathew Nash

I’m Mathew Nash a 27 year old graduate in Sports Studies and I have an insatiable love for sport. With a particularly keen interest for the madcap world of football I have always been known amongst friends as a beacon for bizarre sporting trivia and knowledge. My other passion is for writing and hopefully combining the two will create a superb and entertaining marriage that will create, divide and share opinion.Mathew is a correspondent for the NextGen Series, Ligue 1 and Primeira Liga.